


For That is How Such Things Begin (Darling, We Don’t Have an End)

by sinestrated



Series: Unfettered [5]
Category: Leverage, The Equalizer (Movies)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-25
Updated: 2020-01-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:42:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22398007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinestrated/pseuds/sinestrated
Summary: While on a job in Moscow, Eliot and Quinn run into a legendary hitter. And then Quinn does something pretty legendary of his own.
Relationships: Mr. Quinn/Eliot Spencer
Series: Unfettered [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1572586
Comments: 9
Kudos: 91





	For That is How Such Things Begin (Darling, We Don’t Have an End)

**Author's Note:**

> Well, that's it. Thanks for sticking with me through this little romp, folks! Happy conning!

They’re bathing the dogs, one of Eliot’s favorite activities, when his phone rings.

He doesn’t even hear it at first. Cricket is barking up a storm and keeps trying to heave herself out of the tub to lick their faces, and Rhea seems to have forgotten they’re in a tub at all, jumping around as her tail whips side to side, splashing water and soapy suds everywhere. He and Quinn are both soaked, of course, laughing and trying to wrestle the dogs into some semblance of order, so it’s sheer dumb luck Eliot even manages to catch the distinctive tinkle of his ringtone. Even then, he almost drops the phone right into the warm water, trying to grab it with soapy hands.

Not bothering to check the number, he presses it to his ear, still grinning. “Yeah?”

The person on the other line is female, but he can’t hear anything she says over the dogs barking. It sounds important though, so he tells her, “Hang on.  _ Shevon! _ ”

Immediately both Rhea and Cricket drop to the bottom of the tub, ears up, silent. Quinn turns the water off, sending him a curious look; Eliot nods, reassuring, before turning back to his phone. “Sorry. Who is this?”

He can almost see the woman’s smile when she speaks, soft yet firm with a hint of a Chinese accent. “Eliot Spencer. I’m calling on behalf of Mr. Tang.”

Eliot’s entire body stills. Cricket whines, but Quinn silences her with a click of his tongue, watching Eliot intensely. He can’t hear the conversation, but he must know something’s up.

Eliot takes a deep breath. He doesn’t bother to probe the woman further for her identity. Anyone who would dare cross Tang Yuanchu by impersonating his associate is not someone who’s going to be on this planet for long. “Yes, ma’am. I’m listening.”

“Six months ago, you incurred a debt to my boss.”

Involuntarily, Eliot looks at Quinn. Even half a year down the line, his partner still sometimes favors his left shoulder during particularly bad fights, still sometimes wakes with nightmares about drowning that leave him breathless and shivering in Eliot’s arms. He swallows. “Yeah. I did.”

“He apologizes for the delay, but wishes to...how do you Americans say...‘cash it in.’ Be in Sheremetyevo by tomorrow morning, six o’clock. Men’s room closest to your gate, third stall.” A brief pause. “Mr. Tang suggests you bring your friend along. It may...increase your chances of success.”

Then she hangs up. 

In the ensuing quiet, broken only by the dogs’ soft breathing and the gentle rippling of water, Eliot blinks down at his phone for a moment, unsure how to feel. Tang has never crossed him—has never needed to, given both their reputations—and he doesn’t expect the most powerful man in Asia to start now. However, during that first phone call Eliot made all those months ago, grieving and desperate, Tang had promised the job within three months. The fact that it’s been delayed to twice that can mean only one thing: complications. And any hitter knows complications are never good news.

“So.” He turns to see Quinn watching him, eyebrows raised. “Work?” 

“Tang.”

“Ah.” His partner nods. “From that thing with Yuvchenko.”

In a long line of people who have beaten and shot and tried to kill him over the years, all of whom Quinn’s sort of just shrugged off like vaguely annoying used car salesmen, the fact that his partner still remembers that one bastard’s name is enough to make Eliot’s blood boil. Neither of them will ever forget that terrible night in Ukraine, when Quinn took a bullet and fell backward into a river, and Eliot’s entire world crumbled to dust.

“Hey.” A warm hand on his shoulder jolts him from dark thoughts, and Eliot turns to see Quinn smiling at him, easy as always. “I hear Moscow’s nice this time of year.”

“It’s winter.”

“So pack your fuzzy coat.” Quinn’s already getting to his feet, reaching up to run a hand through his dirty-blond hair, buzzed short thanks to that job they pulled three weeks ago where he’d impersonated a Marine. It’s a good look on him, though Eliot kind of misses the ponytail. “If we hop on the next flight we can be there by morning. Girls,  _ schetzke _ . Out.”

“Leave your weapons,” Eliot says, grabbing a towel as Cricket and Rhea scramble out of the tub. At Quinn’s sour look, he shrugs. “Tang promised me minimal bloodshed.”

“Well, for your sake he’d better be right,” Quinn answers, before his eyes widen. “Ah, no, Cricket, don’t shake— _ goddamnit! _ ”

#

_ Moscow’s nice this time of year, my ass. _

Eliot’s going to kill Quinn. Well, no, he actually kind of wants to kill Tang for getting them mixed up in this shit in the first place, but trying to kill Tang is like trying to kill a hurricane, so he’ll take what he can get.

It’s fucking  _ freezing _ . He’s lost track of how many layers he’s got on, and this bulky parka he’s wearing is impossible to move in and he can still feel the fucking wind even through its thick insulation, and his nose is running and he can’t feel his face and Eliot Spencer just doesn’t fucking do well in cold, okay?

A soft chuckle comes through the earbud. “Getting soft, Spencer?”

It takes an alarming amount of control not to turn and glare at his partner on the other side of the courtyard. Quinn’s playing a local this trip, standing next to a light pole having a smoke as he talks into his phone. Whenever someone walks by he switches to Russian, pretending to plan out a date night with the wife, but in between he’s had no qualms about teasing Eliot mercilessly. Leave it to Quinn to actually  _ like _ the cold, monster that he is. And okay, Eliot knows they’ve both survived worse situations than this—he’s got a particularly dark memory of a mountain range in Myanmar—but Quinn’s right. He’s gotten used to Portland, to Leverage’s comfy offices and his own cozy apartment with Quinn and the dogs. It’s not his goddamned fault their clients rarely need work done in the Himalayas. Or Antarctica.

“Shut up,” he growls, lifting the camera up. Despite the weather, even he’s gotta begrudgingly admit this park looks absolutely stunning covered in a fresh coat of powdery white snow. He kind of regrets that the camera is fake, but it’s what they found inside the tank in the men’s room at the airport, so he’s rolling with it. “You see him yet?”

The dossier tucked carefully next to the camera held little information: just the address of this park, a time five minutes from now, and instructions to “engage target as necessary to convince him to make the call.” No other clues, no indication of who the target is or what they’re supposed to do to persuade him. Though Eliot has an idea it may involve not a small amount of punching.

“No.” Quinn’s reply is far too cheerful. “But we  _ are _ early. Try to act natural, Eliot. You’re scaring that lady’s kids.”

The trio of civilians—a young woman and twin little girls—are looking at him like he owns an unmarked white van and hands out free candy. Eliot clears his throat, flashes them a grin, and raises his camera again. 

“Whatever. Let’s just get this done and get back to the hotel. I want a shower, soup, and then to hibernate for about a year.”

“What? Come on, Eliot, that’s so dull.”

“You got somethin’ better planned?”

“...No.” 

If Eliot didn’t know Quinn so well, he’d have missed the moment’s hesitation. As it stands, he narrows his eyes. “What?”

“What what?”

He growls again. “Cut that shit out, Quinn. I’m sick of it.” And he kind of is. Quinn’s been strangely dodgy the last month or so, not obvious but enough for Eliot to notice. Half-answering questions. Redirecting conversations. And he trusts his partner, wholly and completely—it scares him sometimes, how much he’s come to rely on Quinn, how deeply the other man has suffused his life, how much Eliot wants him there forever—but it’s starting to get on Eliot’s nerves. 

It doesn’t help that the last time Quinn acted like this, Rhea had surgery to remove a growth in her abdomen. It turned out to be benign, thank God, but Quinn conveniently neglected to tell him about it until he came home after a job and found her sprawled on her bed, blinking up at him miserably from inside the plastic cone.

He’d banished Quinn to the couch for a week.

Quinn sighs, a rush of staticky breath over the comms. “Look, Eliot, it—oh.” His voice goes suddenly tight and on-edge, enough for Eliot’s body to send a sympathetic frisson of anxiety down his spine. “Spencer, your four o’clock. It’s him.  _ Fuck. _ ”

Carefully, Eliot turns to take a false photo of a nearby tree, just enough to put the south entrance to the courtyard in his peripheral vision. He catches the flicker of movement, the thick clothes, the hat, the face underneath, and stiffens. “Fuck” is right.

The man now crossing the courtyard with measured, purposeful steps has a face Eliot hoped never to see in his life. It’s the face of a soldier, a methodical and deadly fighter, and the last thing countless people on this earth have seen before their lives winked out in a blaze of fists and fury.

“Shit, it’s McCall.” Quinn’s voice is a hissed mixture of fear, anger, and awe. “Our target is Robert fucking McCall.”

Eliot’s thoughts exactly.

Within the seedy hitter underground, Quinn is well-known. Eliot is legendary. But Robert McCall is the fucking pantheon. What the hell does Tang possibly want with this man? And how, in the name of everything holy, are Eliot and Quinn supposed to convince him of anything? 

One thing’s for sure: no wonder Tang delayed the job. On a scale of complications, Robert McCall is right up there with the asteroid that took out the dinosaurs.

Over the comms, Quinn takes a deep breath. “Well, guess that changes our plans,” he murmurs. “Come on, Eliot.”

He’s already tossing his cigarette away and moving to intercept McCall, no subtlety, no finesse. Eliot grits his teeth. “The fuck’re you doing?”

Which, of course, is when McCall stops walking and turns to look straight at him. “What he’s doing, son, is the smart thing.”

There aren’t many things in the world that can scare Eliot Spencer. A close shave with a hot nuclear warhead is one. Being hurled out of a plane with two gunshot wounds and no parachute is another. 

With Robert McCall watching him with those dark diamond eyes, the intensity of his focus like the laser point precluding a sniper shot, Eliot would take both those other scenarios, at the same time, any day.

McCall, to his credit, maintains an easy, open stance as they approach. Eliot isn’t fooled, though. The man isn’t wearing gloves and he can see the old scars on the knuckles, the thick-banded digital watch on his wrist. If he wanted to, McCall could kill them both with ten seconds and a paper clip. So much for lazing it out at the hotel after.

Quinn speaks first. “Sir,” he says, and Eliot almost laughs at the respect in his voice. Looks like someone’s a secret fanboy. “I guess you know why we’re here.”

McCall hums. His breath frosts in the air as he speaks. “I don’t, actually. Though I assume you here on behalf-a somebody else.”

There’s a jibe there, Eliot’s sure, something about two notorious hitters being reduced to mere errand boys. But he can’t find it in himself to be angry. Not when he’s too busy being really, legitimately worried that they’re both about to die.

Clearing his throat, he reaches down to open the camera. In place of a film cartridge, there’s a tiny burner phone, barely the size of his palm. He holds it out to McCall and takes a deep breath. “For you. Tang Yuanchu requests that you call him.”

“Ah.” McCall nods, but doesn’t move to take the phone. His eyes flit from Eliot to Quinn, unafraid, assessing. “This must be about Hong Kong.”

“We wouldn’t know, sir,” Quinn says. “We’re just doing as Tang requested.”

“Course you are.” There’s no judgment in McCall’s tone as he reaches out to pluck the phone from Eliot’s palm. He weighs the little device for a moment, glancing up at them once again. “And if I refuse?”

Eliot swallows. Shit. Well, at least Parker and Hardison know they’re out, so if he and Quinn spend the next few weeks in the hospital the dogs’ll be taken care of.

Quinn takes a deep breath. “We’ve been told to...persuade you. Sir.”

“Hm.” McCall’s gaze slides slowly between them as a heavy tension fills the air. Out of the corner of Eliot’s eye, he notices the tiny movement Quinn makes toward the knife on his belt. He takes a deep breath and focuses on McCall. The man’s left his right side open, on purpose or not, Eliot can’t tell, but that means he can probably get one good strike in, maybe two, before McCall rips them both apart.

And then, just when Eliot’s resigned himself to pissing into a bag for the next six months, McCall’s shoulders relax and he grins. “Y’know, Mr. Spencer an’ Mr. Quinn,” he says, “as entertainin’ as I’m sure it’d be if I took you both on, it’s too fuckin’ cold for this, I’d say. How ‘bout we save it for another day?” 

And, before Eliot or Quinn can say anything, he shrugs, presses a button on the phone, and lifts it to his ear. “Mr. Tang. How nice of you to reach out. What? Yeah, no, we all gentlemen here. Yeah, sure, I’ll be there. I’d say this makes us even.”

Then, just like that, he’s handing the phone back to Eliot and turning away, touching his finger to his hat. “Afternoon, boys.”

And he’s gone. Eliot turns to stare at Quinn, who looks just as shocked as he feels. Did they just...did they...

Shit, he needs a drink. Definitely two. Definitely ten.

#

“Holy fuck.” Back in the hotel room, Quinn leans forward against the balcony railing, shaking his head. “I can’t believe we threatened  _ Robert McCall  _ and lived to tell about it.”

“Tell about it?” Eliot shakes his head, taking another swig of his beer. “Ain’t nobody gonna believe us.”

“Parker will.”

“Parker believes in Santa Claus, Quinn.”

That startles a laugh out of his partner. “Yeah,” Quinn says, snatching Eliot’s beer. “Okay, then. Maybe not.”

He flashes Eliot a grin, which he can’t help but return. Hey, despite their near-death encounter, all in all things went well. Minimal bloodshed, just as Tang promised. A decent payout for what amounted to delivering a message. A nice, cozy suite at one of the most luxurious hotels in Moscow, booked for an entire week as Tang’s version of thanks. And Quinn, here by his side, here to stay.

Which leaves just the one thing.

“So,” he says.

His partner lowers the beer bottle and raises an eyebrow. “So...?”

“So you gonna tell me why you’ve been all shifty recently, or do I have to beat it outta you? ‘Cause if it’s Rhea, or Cricket, and you keep me in the dark about that again—”

“It’s not.” Quinn’s smile goes a bit lopsided. “At least not this time.”

“Then what is it?” Sudden cold seizes Eliot’s heart. “You ain’t, uh, havin’ second thoughts, are you? About us?” Quinn hasn’t given any indication he’s been unhappy with their relationship, despite Parker and Hardison’s endless teasing. But who’s to say? Eliot’s never been good at reading people. If anything, he’s good at destroying them. What if Quinn’s finally gotten sick of him? What if—

“Whoa, okay, stay with me, Eliot.” Quinn’s warm fingers wrap around his own. His hazel eyes are intense. “It’s not that. In fact, it’s...uh. Kind of the opposite.”

Eliot blinks. What?

Quinn straightens and seems to take a breath. “Jacob Mizrahi,” he says, with a strong Hebrew accent.

“Who’s that?”

In response, Quinn reaches into his pocket, pulls something out, and places it on the balcony between them. Eliot’s eyes widen. It’s a box. Specifically, a ring box.

Quinn shrugs, nonchalant, but Eliot can clearly see the anxiety in his eyes, the way his shoulders have tightened up just slightly. “I suppose you should know my real name,” he says, speaking slowly, “if I’m gonna ask you to marry me.”

Eliot stares.

Out beyond, the world continues on. Music plays from the giant speakers down the main street. A few brave souls stagger through the cold as the snow falls in thick, freezing sheets. Somewhere far below, someone lets out a full belly laugh, utterly delighted and carefree. And Eliot just watches Quinn, unable to speak.

So this is where they’re headed. Truthfully, Eliot’s never given much thought to the concept of marriage: he’s been too preoccupied with survival for most of his life to really consider a future for himself. He never really thought he and Quinn needed that, either; they love each other, he knows that for a fact, and no amount of certificates or paperwork or fancy ceremonies will change that. If he does this, it’ll just be to make Quinn happy. 

And that’s really what clinches it. Eliot doesn’t need this, but Quinn wants it, and making his partner happy is what brings joy to Eliot’s life. And if this is all he’s asking for, then in the grand scheme of things, why does it have to be hard?

The answer is it doesn’t. Being with Quinn has never been difficult or complicated. Why start now?

Slowly, he reaches out to take the box, noting Quinn’s gaze heavy on him the entire way. Popping it open reveals a solid metal ring inside, half a centimeter thick and pure dark silver with streaks of iridescent blue that shift and turn with the light. It’s beautiful. It’s perfect.

A throat clears, and he looks up to see Quinn’s smile soften. “Blue titanium,” his partner says. “Like your eyes.”

“You.” Eliot shakes his head, heart swelling, and yes, there are tears in his eyes but can you blame him? Quinn  _ worked _ for this. “You are such a fuckin’ sap.”

And then he’s pulling Quinn in, and his partner tastes like beer and cigarettes but he can’t even bring himself to care because it’s  _ Quinn _ , it has been and will always be Quinn, and Eliot Spencer doesn’t need anything more than that to make him the luckiest man in the universe.

They pull back, and Eliot grins. “Come on,” he says, taking Quinn’s hand to tug him into the bedroom.

His partner raises an eyebrow. “I’ll take that as a yes?”

“Sure, I got nothin’ better to do,” Eliot answers, and Quinn laughs, the relief and happiness evident in his voice.

“You know they got cameras in all the rooms,” he says, as Eliot shoves him down on the bed and straddles his legs.

“Then we’ll give ‘em a show.”

“The state police’ll probably show up, due to our...immoral activities.”

Eliot grins, running his palms up Quinn’s thighs. “Then we’ll give ‘em a  _ different _ kinda show.”

Then he leans down to kiss Quinn, and there’s not much else to talk about after that.

He doesn’t try on the ring. It’ll fit him perfectly, just like the man who gave it to him. 

**Author's Note:**

> Some personal headcanons that didn’t make it into this series explicitly: Quinn was either former IDF or Mossad, he’s never specified which. He sometimes sleeptalks in Hebrew when he’s really tired, to Eliot’s amusement. He goes back to Tel Aviv every year to visit his aging grandmother; he loves the food but hates having to watch his mouth (his grandmother has, and will, climb on top of a chair to smack him for taking God’s name in vain).
> 
> **Regarding translations:** All my works, including this one, can be translated without first asking my express permission. I ask only that you credit me as the original author and provide a link back to the original work. For anything other than translations, please ask first. Thanks.


End file.
